This invention is related in general to the field of telecommunications equipment. More particularly, the invention is related to a World Wide Web (WWW) interface to a telecom service creation environment (SCE).
With the advent of the Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN), many new telecommunications services have become available. These new services may include free phone, calling card, virtual net, follow me, fully flexible routing, and debit card. These services are typically defined in a service creation environment (SCE) node in the Advanced Intelligent Network by the service provider and then disseminated to the rest of the network for execution. Many of these new services provide added flexibility and convenience in how we may use our telephone equipment. However, after a customer subscribes to a new service, changes or updates to service parameters are typically done by the service provider customer support personnel who has access to the service creation environment. As a result, the service subscribers or users cannot easily update the service parameters to maximize the benefits of the services they subscribe to.
Therefore, a need has arisen for a way to allow a service subscriber to quickly and easily make changes or updates to telecommunications service parameters. In this way, the service subscriber can fully take advantage of the flexibility of telecommunications services.
In one aspect of the invention, a web interface to a service creation environment includes a service logic parser adapted to receive a service logic description from the service creation environment, parse the service logic description, and generate a web browser readable service data file. At least one web page is adapted to display information in the service data files and prompt for user input in response thereto. A call scripting process continuously receives the user inputs entered on the at least one web page and communicates the user inputs to the service creation environment.
In another aspect of the invention, a web interface to a telecommunications network includes a service logic parser adapted to parse a service logic description and generate a web browser readable service data file therefrom, and at least one web page adapted to display information in the service data files and prompt for user input in response thereto. A call scripting process is adapted to continuously receive the user inputs entered on the at least one web page and continuously communicate the user inputs to a node in the telecommunications network.
In yet another aspect of the invention, a method for providing a web interface to a service creation environment including the steps of generating a service data file describing a service in a web browser readable format, reading the service data file and constructing at least one web page for displaying information therein, prompting for and receiving user input on the at least one web page, and communicating the user input to the service creation environment.